
A QUESTION OF 

BEING THE 

OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE 

BETWEEN 

NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER 

President of Columbia University 
AND 

J- E. SPINGARN 

Professor of Comparative Literature, and Chairman of the Division of 
Modern Languages and Literatures, in Columbia University 

DURING THE ACADEMIC YEAR 1910-1911 
WITH OTHER DOCUMENTS 



NEW YORK 

PRINTED FOR DISTRIBUTION AMONG THE ALUMNI 
1911 



A QUESTION OF 

* ■ 

BEING THE 

OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE 

BETWEEN 

NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER 

President of Columbia University 
AND 



J. E. SPINGARN 

I! 

Professor of Comparative Literature, and Chairman of the Division of 
Modern Languages and Literatures, in Columbia University 



DURING THE ACADEMIC YEAR 1910-1911 
WITH OTHER DOCUMENTS 



NEW YORK 

PRINTED FOR DISTRIBUTION AMONG THE ALUMNI 

1911 



y' 



'# 



"And how can a man teach with authority, which 
is the life of teaching, — how can he be a doctor in 
his books, as he ought to be, or else had better be 
silent, — when all he teaches, all he delivers, is but 
under the tuition, under the correction of a patriar- 
chal licenser, to blot or alter what precisely accords 
not with the hide-bound humour which he calls his 
judgment? Yet if these things be not resented seri- 
ously and timely by them who have the remedy in 
their power, the more sorrow will belong to that 
hapless race of men, whose misfortune it is to have 
understanding. Henceforth, let no man care to 
learn, or care to be more than worldly wise ; for cer- 
tainly, in higher matters, to be ignorant and sloth- 
ful, to be a common steadfast dunce, will be the only 
pleasant life." — Milton's Areopagitica. 



am 



INTRODUCTION 



On March 6, 1911, without explanation of any 
kind, Professor J. E. Spingarn was "relieved from 
further academic service" at Columbia University. 
During the controversy which followed, both in 
academic circles and in the public press through- 
out the country, constant reference was made to 
the official records in the case, which appeared in 
the newspapers in imperfect fragments only. It 
has been felt by many that the time has now come 
when the ends of higher education would best be 
served by the publication of these records in full. 
Certainly, it is important that whatever publicity 
is attracted to the worst defects of our univer- 
sities should not only be based on trustworthy 
data, but be adequate and complete. In this pam- 
phlet all the official correspondence that passed 
between Professor Spingarn and President Nich- 
olas Murray Butler during the academic year 
1910-1911, with a few other documents germane 
to the case, is now presented to the consideration 
of the alumni of Columbia, not because of any 
interest which these letters or documents possess 
in themselves, but in the hope that, by the very 
fact of publicity, and by the light which they shed 
on the administration of the University, they may 
serve to arouse attention to the cause of academic 
freedom. 

Columbia University, like many other Ameri- 
can institutions, but unlike the old universities of 
Europe, is governed by a self-perpetuating Board 



4 INTRODUCTION 

of Trustees, consisting of financiers, lawyers, di- 
vines, and other men, not one of whom is a scholar 
by profession or familiar with the more intimate 
atmosphere of academic life. These Trustees con- 
trol the finances, appoint and promote Professors, 
determine educational policy, and no power of any 
kind is vested in any faculty of the University 
except as these powers are granted to the faculty 
by the Trustees. The President is the only officer 
of the University who sits on the Board of Trus- 
tees; no member of the teaching staff is connected 
with it in any way, or has any means of official 
communication with it except through the President. 
Communications of any kind which the faculties 
or individual teachers may wish to present to this 
Board must therefore pass through his hands. 
Obviously, this gives him great power. The pro- 
fessor who wishes to be promoted or to have his 
salary increased is dependent upon the good will 
of the President in having that official present his 
case as favorably as possible to the Trustees. 

Moreover, all the officers of the University hold 
their positions "at the pleasure of the Trustees." 
This phrase has not as yet received final adjudica- 
tion by any court of highest resort, but it is inter- 
preted by the Trustees to mean that the tenure of 
professorial office is absolutely at their whim. No 
personal hearing is ever given by them to any mem- 
ber of the teaching staff, and a professor may learn 
of their intentions only after they have made their 
final decision of dismissal. This further increases 
the immense power of the President, since it is pos- 
sible for him to prejudice the minds of the Trustees 
against any officer toward whom his own feelings 
are unfriendly or of whom, for any reason, he en- 
tertains an unfavorable opinion. 

But even this does not adequately describe the 
conditions of university government at Columbia. 



INTRODUCTION 5 

The real work of the Board of Trustees is confided 
to its five committees, on Finance, on Buildings and 
Grounds, on Honors, on the Library, and on Educa- 
tion. The last of these determines the educational 
policy of the university and the status of the teach- 
ing staff; it is therefore by far the most important 
in all that concerns the university as an institution 
of learning. Its recommendations are accepted 
without independent investigation and often even 
without discussion by. the board as a whole. It is 
therefore in a sense the ultimate power in the life 
of the institution. Yet the meetings of this com- 
mittee, which consists of seven members, are seldom 
attended by more than three or four ; and the desti- 
nies of Columbia, with its more than seven hundred 
teachers and more than seven thousand students, 
are settled at these secret conclaves between the 
President and three or four of his friends. 

Under such a system, it is small wonder that the 
President is surrounded by sycophants, since syco- 
phancy is a condition of official favor ; small wonder 
that intellectual freedom and personal courage 
dwindle, explaining, if not justifying, the jibe of 
European scholars that there are three sexes in 
America, men, women and professors ; small wonder 
that permission to give utterance to mild theories 
of parlor socialism is mistaken by American Uni- 
versities for superb freedom of action. But what- 
ever may be the defects or the virtues of this sys- 
tem, it fails utterly unless the President is, as it 
were, a transparent medium between the teaching 
corps and the Trustees. If he misrepresents the 
conditions of the University ; if he distorts the com- 
munications entrusted to him for presentation to 
the Trustees ; if he uses his position to serve the ends 
of spite or rancor or his own ambition, hapless in- 
deed (in Milton's words) is that race of men whose 
misfortune it is to have understanding. Much, too 



6 INTRODUCTION 

much, depends on his good faith and honor. It is 
the purpose of this pamphlet to indicate the danger 
to academic freedom and to the higher aims of 
University life that at the present time, for this 
reason, confronts Columbia. 

The Department of Comparative Literature was 
organized by Professor George E. Woodberry in 
1899, and for eleven years Professor Spingarn was 
connected with the Department in the successive 
grades of Assistant, Tutor, Adjunct Professor, and 
Professor. In 1910, against his earnest protests, 
this Department was amalgamated with the Eng- 
lish Department, and his work was placed under 
the authority of the Professors of English. While 
promising every friendly co-operation with his new 
colleagues, he informed them that he reserved the 
right to ignore their authority whenever it might 
be exerted over his own work in Comparative Lit- 
erature. Accordingly, on November 18, 1910, the 
Chairman of the new Department addressed a 
letter of complaint to the President of the Uni- 
versity. Professor Spingarn' s stand against an 
administrative move dictated solely by a deadly me- 
chanical routine, miscalled efficiency, no doubt 
alienated some of his English colleagues. Ulti- 
mately, however, these differences were amicably 
settled at a conference with the Chairman of the 
Department, but they became a weapon in the hands 
of the President, which he soon made to serve his 
own purpose. 

On December 9, 1910, Professor Spingarn intro- 
duced in the Faculty of Philosophy a brief resolu- 
tion testifying to the academic services of a well- 
known scholar who had recently been dismissed 
from the University, and who was then suing the 
President for libel. The dismissal of this professor 
was due to the newspaper notoriety resulting from 
a legal suit against him, a suit which had not yet 



INTRODUCTION 7 

been tried and which the plaintiff has since failed 
to bring to trial; but the justice or injustice of his 
dismissal has no bearing on a resolution that re- 
ferred solely to the twenty-two years of his previous 
service to the University. Though this resolution 
was laid on the table, it was not Professor Spin- 
garn's intention to allow the matter to drop there, 
and he so informed the President in an interview 
on January 6, 191 1. The President thereupon made 
the following threat: "If you don't drop this mat- 
ter you will get into trouble." Professor Spingarn 
answered: "I am not in the habit of altering 
my conduct because of the .prospect of trouble, 
Mr. President." President Butler was soon able to 
carry out this threat. Within ten days— on Janu- 
ary 16, 1911 — he notified Professor Spingarn that 
the Committee on Education, a committee of the 
Trustees, had voted to abolish Professor Spingarn' s 
chair at the end of the academic year. In an inter- 
view ten days later, he informed Professor Spingarn 
that this action had not as yet been ratified by the 
Board as a whole, and that it was his intention to 
recommend that the action be withdrawn. Since 
then Professor Spingarn has not seen the President 
or any of his English colleagues, and his commu- 
nications with the President have been limited to 
three letters; but on March 6, 1911, the Trustees 
voted not only to abolish his professorship, but to 
relieve him immediately from all further academic 
service. 

This colorless and impartial outline of the case 
takes no account of its more sordid details. Some 
of these, though by no means all, will be found 
in the Correspondence: and in the Chronology 
that follow. It would be disheartening to a proud 
son of Columbia to linger over all the details 
of official trickery and deception, of threat and in- 
sult, of manners even worse than morals; but it 



8 INTRODUCTION 

would be unjust to those who love Columbia's honor 
to hide from them, the fact that, in the course of 
this single incident, the President of their alma 
mater told at least five deliberate falsehoods, broke 
at least three deliberate promises, and denied his 
own statements whenever it served his purpose to 
do so. It is without rancor, and with deep regret, 
that Professor Spingarn feels obliged to state these 
facts, and to express his mature conviction that the 
word or promise of President Butler is absolutely 
worthless unless it is recorded in writing^ and that 
even a written document offers no certain safeguard 
against evasion or distortion. It is to this executive, 
with this code of honor, that Columbia entrusts all 
avenues of communication between the subservient 
Faculties and the governing Trustees. 

This is not a history or an estimate of President 
Butler's administration of Columbia; it is merely 
the record of a single abuse. But the record would 
be incomplete if it were not clearly made known 
that the facts, so far from being exceptional, are 
typical of his executive career. It is not merely 
that Columbia's greatest teachers, poets, mu- 
sicians, have been lost to the University from the 
very outset as a result of his methods and his pol- 
icies. The real scandal is worse than this. It is that 
in the conduct of its affairs a great University, so 
far from being above the commercialism of its in- 
dustrial environment, actually employs methods that 
would be spurned in the humblest of business un- 
dertakings. Even the decencies of ordinary busi- 
ness are not always observed ; and the poor scholar, 
unfamiliar with methods such as these, falls an 
easy prey. No device, however unworthy, is re- 
garded as forbidden by custom or by honor. A 
professor may be asked to send in a purely formal 
resignation as a compliment to the prospective new 
head of his department and then be dumbfounded 



INTRODUCTION 9 

to have his letter acted upon by the President imme- 
diately upon its receipt, and before the new head 
is actually appointed. A professor may be induced 
to come to Columbia by the assurance of the Presi- 
dent that the usual contract "for three years or 
during the pleasure of the Trustees" involves an 
actual obligation for three years on the part of the 
University, while another professor holding the 
same contract with the University may find his 
chair abolished, on the recommendation of the 
President, at the end of two years. These are actual 
cases. It would be unfair to particularize further 
at the risk of ruining the career of some scholar, 
who, by incurring the President's displeasure, might 
easily find himself an academic outlaw; but it is 
only just to caution the newcomer at Columbia that 
every understanding with the President's office 
should be stated in writing and then subjected to 
the scrutiny of a lawyer to eliminate the possibility 
of traps and loopholes. It would almost seem as 
if such devices as these have been the methods of 
his ambition from the outset of his career. 1 But 
the exploitation of his personal fortunes by a small 
coterie will not forever blind the alumni to the 
bitter truth. The University should be the cradle 
and the home, not only of Reason, but of Honor; 
and a lover of Columbia cannot remain silent until 
her honor is once more secure. 

But aside from the defects of personal character, 
there is a larger aspect according to which his ad- 
ministration of the University must be judged. 
Armed with the power given him by the secrecy 
of Trustee action and the aloofness of this ac- 
tion from the life of the teaching staff, he 
has (so far as he could) stifled all manly inde- 
pendence and individuality whenever it has ex- 



1 See, e. g., the New York Times, May 16, 1911. 



10 INTRODUCTION 

hibited itself at Columbia. He has surrounded him- 
self with pliant and unscrupulous tools. All noble 
idealism, and all the graces of poetry and art, have 
been shrivelled by his brutal and triumphant power. 
He has made mechanical efficiency and administra- 
tive routine the goal of the University's endeavor. 
The nobler ends of academic life will never be 
served so long as this spokesman of materialism re- 
mains in power. 



NOTE 



The contents of this pamphlet are as follows: (1) The 
Official Correspondence between President Butler and Pro- 
fessor Spingarn leading up to the retirement of the latter 
from Columbia University; (2) A minute Chronology, 
printed in smaller type, for the benefit of the few who 
may care to have the full details, and giving an accurate 
record of Professor Spingarn's relations with the Uni- 
versity during the year 1910-11; (3) Appendix A, contain- 
ing a few of the letters received by Professor Spingarn 
from his former students during March and April, 1911, 
expressive of their opinion of his work as a teacher; and 
(4) Appendix B, containing a list of his chief publications, 
with a few reviews and letters in regard to his work as 
a scholar and man of letters. It is believed that these 
documents furnish adequate data for a full and impartial 
consideration of the case. 



11 



Official Correspondence Between 

President Butler and 

Professor Spingarn 

The following official correspondence includes all the let- 
ters that passed between President Butler and Professor 
Spingarn during the academic year 1910-1911, without 
omissions of any kind. 

I. FROM PRESIDENT BUTLER. 

Columbia University in the City of New York, 
President's Room. 

November 21, 1910, 
Prof. J. E. Spingarn, 

Columbia University. 
My dear Prof. Spingarn: 

I have received from the Chairman of the Department 
of English and Comparative Literature a memorandum, 
bearing date November 18, 1910, which sets out your 
relations to that Department as your colleagues see them 
and expresses the opinion that these relations are very 
unsatisfactory. The facts stated in this memorandum are 
such as, if unrefuted, to demand consideration by the 
President and the Committee of the Trustees on Educa- 
tion. I very much hope that you may be able, in response 
to this letter, to give me a written statement of your 
position that, when forwarded to the Chairman of the 
Department to which you belong, may open the way to 
the establishment of complete and hearty co-operation 
between you and your colleagues. It would be a great 
disappointment to me to find that there is any cause for 
friction between yourself and your colleagues which can- 
not be speedily removed. 

12 



OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE. 13 

The substance of the memorandum to which I refer 
above is contained in the following sentences, as to the 
correctness of which I should be glad to have an expres- 
sion of your views: 

"Professor Spingarn believes that the union of the De- 
partments of English and Comparative Literature is a 
sort of outrage to him, and he refuses to submit to it. 
He has only friendly feelings toward the other members 
of the Department and wishes to continue to give his 
usual courses of instruction and to take part in the gen- 
eral academic affairs of the University. He refuses, 
however, to submit to the authority of the President 
and Trustees to assign him to a Department, and his atti- 
tude is one of refusal to recognize the action of the 
Trustees. In consequence, he refuses to recognize the 
authority of the Department or to serve on its committees 
or to have anything to do with it officially. ******* 
Apart from any interest in Professor Spingarn's theories 
of college government, the practical result of his attitude 
very decidedly concerns us. The line which he draws 
between departmental and other duties is a difficult one 
to follow. ****** Moreover, Professor Spingarn's 
attitude of opposition creates bad feeling among stu- 
dents, and we have no means of dealing with him or 
even of offering suggestions until the main issue is dis- 
posed of. It seems clear that it is an undesirable condi- 
tion and one detrimental to the efficiency of the Depart- 
ment for one member to regard himself as outside of 
its authority and co-operation." 

Will you not give me a statement of your views in 
regard to these matters at your early convenience? 

Faithfully yours, 

(Signed) Nicholas Murray Butler. 1 



1 The asterisks in this letter are President Butler's. 



14 OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE 

II. FROM PROFESSOR SPINGARN. 

Columbia University in the City of New York, 
Department of Comparative Literature. 

November 23, 1910. 

Nicholas Murray Butler, D. C. L., 

President of Columbia University. 
My dear President Butler: 

I have received your letter of the 21st, in which you 
ask for an expression of my opinion in regard to a 
brief passage which you quote from a memorandum of 
the Chairman of the Department of English and Com- 
parative Literature, dated November 18, 1910. 

It is true that I regard the amalgamation of the De- 
partments of English and Comparative Literature as an 
unwise step; and I see no reason why I should not 
express my opinion and protest in respect to it, until 
what is for the present a fait accompli shall have been 
altered for the right. But it is not true that I have 
ever refused to any of my colleagues, in the English 
Department or elsewhere, the benefit of such counsel and 
scholarship as it is in my power to offer them. It is 
certainly the duty of a teaching scholar to place his intel- 
lectual gifts (whatever they may be) at the service of 
his colleagues as well as of his students; and, so far as 
I know, I have never been unfaithful to this ideal. I 
confess that my heart sickens at the very thought of 
administrative tasks for which I have neither capacity 
nor inclination, and I do not propose to have the leisure 
for productive scholarship interfered with by any addi- 
tional burdens of this kind ; but certainly every manly 
and high-minded scholar in the country would sympathize 
with my refusal to perform such tasks whenever they 
conflict with my knowledge of my own capacity or my 
devotion to my own scholarly ideals. I do not rate 
my personal counsel and advice very highly; but such as 
it is, it is at the service of my English and other col- 



OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE 15 

leagues whenever they may seek it, and shall always 
continue to be at their service so long as I remain an 
officer of the University. 

I am sending a copy of this letter to the Chairman 
of the Department of English and Comparative Litera- 
ture, with the statement that it is your personal request 
that he and I arrange an interview for the discussion of 
this whole matter. 

Faithfully yours, 

(Signed) J. E. Spingarn. 



III. EROM PRESIDENT BUTLER. 

Columbia University in the City of New York, 

President's Room. 

January 16, 1911. 
Professor J. E. Spingarn, 

Columbia University, 
My dear Professor Spingarn: 

The Committee of the Trustees on Education, having 
before them the letter of Professor Thorndike, dated 
November 18, 1910, and your comments thereon dated 
November 23, 1910, as well as a statement of subsequent 
conversations that I have had with both you and Pro- 
fessor Thorndike, and having particularly in mind the 
financial condition of the University, have decided that 
it is inexpedient to attempt to maintain a second Profes- 
sorship of Comparative Literature. They are therefore 
recommending to the Trustees, in connection with the 
provisions of the Budget for 1911-12, that the Professor- 
ship of Comparative Literature now held by you be dis- 
continued from and after June 30 next. 

You will recall that at our last interview I intimated to 
you that action of this kind was quite within the range 
of possibility. If you prefer to withdraw from the Uni- 
versity of your own motion at the close of the present 



16 OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE 

academic year, you will of course take such action as 
will lead to this end. I shall hope that in any event you 
will continue your career as a productive scholar in the 
field of literary criticism in which you have already made 
so substantial a beginning. 

Very truly yours, 

(Signed) Nicholas Murray Butler. 



IV. FROM PROFESSOR SPINGARN. 

January 30, 1911. 

Nicholas Murray Butlkr, D. C. L., 

President, Columbia University. 
My dear President Butler: 

At our interview last Thursday you requested me to 
place before you in writing, as briefly as possible, the 
grounds of my dissatisfaction with your letter of January 
16, in order that you might present a definite statement of 
my position to the Committee on Education of the Trus- 
tees. I shall try to be as brief as you request. 

I question the legal right of the Trustees to discontinue 
my professorship on June 30 next. They entered into a 
contract with me for three years from July 1, 1909, and 
I dispute their legal power to terminate this contract be- 
fore June 30, 1912, without cause. But wholly regard- 
less of this contention, I insist that a moral obligation 
rests upon them which they cannot honorably avoid — 
certainly not by pleading "the financial condition of the 
University." Poverty is no excuse for attempting to ter- 
minate in two years a contract that does not expire for 
at least three. I am convinced that their obligation does 
not end even then, and that an academic tradition par- 
taking of the strength of law ensures to a full professor 
absolute security of tenure in his professorship "during 
good behavior." After five or ten years of apprenticeship 
as assistant, tutor, and instructor, the professor has a right 



OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE 17 

to feel that the University is under specific obligations to 
him which cannot be evaded by the mere plea of financial 
stringency, unless we are to assume that all obligations 
of service are on the professor and none whatever on the 
University. I cannot therefore regard the financial plea 
as vital to the issue. 

The letters and the conversations to which you refer 
seem to me to have no greater bearing on the 
case. The letter of Professor Thorndike, dated Novem- 
ber 18, refers to my relations with the members of the 
Department of English and Comparative Literature, who 
had become my colleagues some six weeks earlier. But 
the statements in this letter are no longer applicable to 
the present case, for on January 9 I had a conversation 
with Professor Thorndike in regard to my relations with 
the Department, and we agreed upon a modus vivendi 
which he assured me was perfectly satisfactory to him. 
Two days later he again told me that the Department was 
thoroughly satisfied with the co-operation arranged for, 
that it was unnecessary for me to communicate the result 
to you, as he was obliged to see you in a day or two, and 
that he would personally inform you of our satisfactory 
arrangement. As I heard nothing from him or from you 
until I received your letter of January 16, I certainly had 
the right to suppose that my relations with the Depart- 
ment were all that could be desired, and that Professor 
Thorndike's letter of November 18 had been practically 
(or perhaps even technically) withdrawn. At least three 
members of the Department, including Professor Thorn- 
dike, have stated that they had assumed the modus vivendi 
of January 9 (communicated to you later) had closed the 
whole matter, and that they were absolutely unprepared 
for the action of the Committee on Education the fol- 
lowing week. I do not see how the letter of November 
18 can now be urged in any way as a ground for discon- 
tinuing my professorship. 

It is unnecessary to refer to the causes which led up 
to Professor Thorndike's letter, since the differences of 



18 OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE 

literary and scholarly ideals between my colleagues and 
myself did not prevent the arrangement of a modus vivendi 
satisfactory to all the other members of the Department. 
The brief extract from Professor Thorndike's letter which 
you cited as giving the gist of the whole (I have not seen 
the rest of the letter) deals only with my personal and 
official relations with my immediate colleagues, and it is 
only fair to me to say that these colleagues of six weeks 
were not in a position to express an adequate judgment 
on any other matter concerning me. 

You will doubtless recall that when I saw you three or 
four days after you had received Professor Thorndike's 
letter of November 18, you told me that you did not wish 
to present it to the Committee on Education of the Trus- 
tees; that I should see Professor Thorndike; that you 
felt sure the matter could be settled between him and me, 
and that you would withhold his letter until the matter had 
been discussed in that way. 

A series of circumstances (including absence during 
the Christmas vacation) prevented me from seeing him 
for some time. Before I could do so the following in- 
cident occurred : 

On December 9, at a stated meeting of the Faculty of 
Philosophy, I introduced the following resolution, which 
was duly seconded, and then without debate laid upon the 
table : 

"Resolved, That the Faculty of Philosophy desires to 
place on record its sense of the academic services of Harry 
Thurston Peck, who was connected with the University 
for twenty-two years, and was a member of this Faculty 
from the date of its organization." 

I venture to call your attention to the fact that this reso- 
lution refers only to the academic services of Professor 
Peck. Concerning his personal or non-academic conduct 
I had no knowledge whatever before his dismissal from the 
University; I cannot recall more than three conversations 
with him, and these of the most perfunctory kind only. 
I could speak only of his literary and scholarly services 



OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE 19 

to the University, and these seemed to me sufficient to 
merit at least a modest resolution in the privacy of a 
faculty meeting among his own former colleagues. By no 
construction of the resolution, however strained, can it 
be supposed to reflect on any action taken by others, or 
to refer to anything save the literary and scholarly serv- 
ices which Professor Peck may be assumed to have ren- 
dered during his twenty-two years of connection with the 
University. I refuse to believe that this slight act of 
generous pity, however mistaken it may or may not have 
been, can have impaired my usefulness to the University, 
or justified serious official displeasure. And yet, shortly 
after the resolution was introduced, Professor Thorndike's 
letter went to the Committee on Education; upon my re- 
turn from my vacation you told me (January 6) that I 
would get into trouble if I did not drop the whole Peck 
matter; and despite Professor Thorndike's assurance on 
January 9 that everything had been satisfactorily arranged, 
I soon received your letter of January 16 announcing the 
prospective discontinuance of my professorship. 

As a graduate of the College, as well as a doctor of the 
University, I hold myself second to none in loyalty to my 
alma mater. It is a matter of pride to me that she was 
a pioneer in the work of comparative literature, and that 
I have had the honor to be connected with this pioneer 
work from the outset. My doctoral dissertation was the 
first in this field at Columbia, and it remains, I believe, 
the only contribution to the history of European literature 
by a living American scholar that has been translated into 
a foreign tongue. But it is unreasonable to regard com- 
parative literature as a highly technical and mysterious 
subject, and to speak of the inexpediency of maintaining 
two professorships devoted to it. Every professor of the 
history of literature in the University is a professor of com- 
parative literature; and conversely every professor of 
comparative literature must of necessity be a contributor to 
the literary fields of his colleagues. When I made a certain 
modest contribution to Italian literary history, the poet Car- 



20 OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE 

ducci thanked me "in the name of Italian literature" and not 
of comparative literature. It was simply as a competent 
literary scholar, I imagine, and not as the devotee of an 
esoteric science, that I was invited by the great sister uni- 
versities of England to join in their scholarly work, editing 
monuments of English criticism for the Clarendon Press 
of Oxford and contributing a chapter to the Cambridge 
History of English Literature. To abolish comparative 
literature (except as a mere name) is to abolish literary 
history; the terms are really synonymous. Instead of 
diminishing the number of professorships devoted to it, 
it would at least be more reasonable to suggest that one 
or more be added to every literary department in the Uni- 
versity, in order that one or two scholars in every de- 
partment should be able to see beyond its own national or 
parochial limits. 

I reassert my loyalty to my alma mater; but if security 
of tenure in the professorship, if fidelity to contract or a 
sense of obligation to the academic profession, if freedom 
of speech and conduct do not exist at Columbia, it is right 
that the academic world should know it. 

Believe me always, my dear Mr. President, 

Faithfully yours, 

(Signed) J. E. Spingarn. 



V. FROM PRESIDENT BUTLER. 

Columbia University in the City of New York, 

President's Room. 

February 3, 1911. 

Professor J. E. Spingarn, 

Columbia University. 
Dear Professor Spingarn: 

Your letter bearing date January 30, 1911, was received 
by me yesterday morning and laid before the Committee 



OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE 21 

of the Trustees on Education at their meeting held yes- 
terday afternoon. 

I ami directed by the Committee to say that your letter 
made upon them a most unfavorable impression, both in 
tone and in content. It was particularly unfortunate, in 
view of the specific statement which I made to you dur- 
ing our conversation on January 26, that you should now 
endeavor to create the impression that the resolution in- 
troduced by you at the meeting of the Faculty of Phil- 
osophy, held on December 9, had any relation whatever 
to the present discussion of your University status and 
efficiency. As you were distinctly informed by me, neither 
the President nor any member of the Committee on Edu- 
cation was aware of the fact that you had introduced any 
resolution at the meeting of the Faculty of Philosophy 
at the time when consideration of your relation to the 
Department of English and Comparative Literature was 
begun. At no time has the fact that you introduced the 
resolution to which you refer had any bearing or influ- 
ence on the matter in any way whatsoever. The Com- 
mittee was unable, because of a long calendar of business, 
to conclude the consideration of the matters to which your 
letter relates, but the present intention of the Committee 
is not to recommend a continuance of your connection 
with the University. When the Committee's consideration 
of the matter is completed, I shall be glad to advise you 
of the result. 

I shall also take this opportunity to point out to you that 
the statements contained in your letter of January 30, so 
far as they relate to conversations with me, are inaccurate 
and misleading, and Professor Thorndike, to whom the 
letter has been shown, tells me that the same is true of 
your references to conversations with him. I observe, 
for example, that you say that I told you that you would 
get into trouble if you did not drop the whole Peck mat- 
ter. What I really told you was that you would get into 
trouble if you persisted in your intention to send to Pro- 



22 OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE 

fessor Russell the letter of which you read me a draft, 
which I regarded as very impertinent. 1 
Yours truly, 
(Signed) Nicholas Murray Buti^r. 



1 The letter to which President Butler refers was as follows : 

"Columbia University, January 4, 1911. 
Professor James E. Russeei,, LL.D., 

Teachers College. 
My dear Sir: 

At a stated meeting of the Faculty of Philosophy, held Decem- 
ber 9, 1910, I introduced the following resolution, which was duly 
seconded : 

"Resolved, That the Faculty of Philosophy place on record its 
sense of the academic services of Harry Thurston Peck, who was 
connected with the University for twenty-two years, and was a 
member of this Faculty from the date of its organization." 

This resolution touched on no delicate or controversial issue, 
and was so framed as to embarrass no one. Certainly no one 
could possibly deny that in the long stretch between 1888 and 
1910 Harry Thurston Peck did render "academic services" to the 
University. If he did not, why was he retained by the University 
for twenty-two years? And if he did, why should his own Faculty 
refuse to acknowledge it? 

But I was not permitted to make this brief explanation. As 
I was in the act of rising to my feet, you, Sir, ignored what I 
believe to be a vital tradition of this Faculty by moving to lay the 
resolution on the table, thus shutting off all debate. In the six 
years of my membership in this Faculty I recall no "motion to lay 
on the table" — certainly no attempt to prevent the mover of a reso- 
lution from explaining the purport of his own motion. Whatever 
your motive for this action, some reparation for this discourtesy 
is due me; you owe it to me to withdraw the resolution from the 
table, in order that I may have an opportunity to discuss it, even 
if it is your intention to lay it on the table immediately after I 
have closed my discussion. The President of the University (if 
my memory does not err) once ruled that a professor's motion 
does not even need a second; an opportunity for full discussion 
is guaranteed by academic tradition; and I am convinced that 
if the President had occupied the chair, he would have ruled your 
motion to lay on the table out of order, on the ground that no 
parliamentary device, whether legitimate or the reverse, should 
be permitted to curtail the full expression of opinion in the 
Faculty of Philosophy. Sincerely yours, 

J. E. Spingarn." 

The original draft of this letter was shown to President Butler 
as a matter of courtesy; but the letter was never sent to Professor 
Russell, because Professor Spingarn learnt later that, once before, 
a motion to lay on the table had been made and carried in the 
Faculty of Philosophy, and also that Professor Russell was likely 
to be absent from the University before another Faculty meeting 
could be held. 



OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE 23 

VI. FROM PROFESSOR SPINGARN. 

Department of Comparative Literature, 

Columbia University, New York. 

February 8, 1911. 
Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler, 

President, Columbia University. 
My dear President Butler: 

I do not wish to mar a dozen years of dignified academic 
service by unseemly personal controversy; and I shall 
therefore ignore the offensive tone of your letter of Febru- 
ary 3. But in justice to myself I cannot permit some of 
its statements to remain uncorrected. Opinions and im- 
plications may always be reasonably disputed; but every 
statement of fact in my letter of January 30 was made 
with careful and deliberate accuracy. Professor Thorn- 
dike certainly will not dispute that on January 9 he told me 
that the agreement I made then in regard to my relation 
with his Department was "satisfactory" to him; he will 
not dispute that he allowed me to go away from that inter- 
view with the distinct impression that the question at issue 
had been amicably settled; he will not dispute that two 
days later, when promising to inform you of our under- 
standing, he said nothing that would lead me to change 
this impression. These are the essential facts, and I pos- 
itively refuse to believe that Professor Thorndike would 
call these misleading or inaccurate. 

I regret also that I cannot agree with your account of 
our penultimate interview on January 6, in so far as it 
relates to your threat of "trouble." It is true that I pre- 
sented to you a draft of a letter to Professor Russell, who 
had made the motion to lay my Peck resolution on the 
table at the Faculty meeting on December 9. This letter 
(of which I shall be glad to furnish you a copy if you 
so desire) was a courteous request to Professor Russell 
to withdraw his motion to lay on the table at the next 
meeting of the Faculty, in order that I might reopen the 



24 OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE 

question of the Peck resolution. A threat that I should 
drop this letter was therefore in any case a threat that 
I should drop the Peck resolution. But as a matter of 
fact your words related, not to this letter, but to the whole 
Peck matter itself. Your exact words were: "If you 
don't drop this matter, you will get into trouble." My ex- 
act answer was: "I am not in the habit of altering my 
conduct because of the prospect of trouble, Mr. Presi- 
dent." In view of the fact that you made this threat on 
January 6 and that it was so speedily followed by the 
announcement (January 16) of the prospective discon- 
tinuance of the second professorship of comparative litera- 
ture, I regret that I cannot accept your statement that the 
Peck matter had nothing to do with the case. Nor am I 
alone among my colleagues in this belief ; for example, Pro- 
fessor Thorndike himself told me and another professor 
of the University that he believed the Peck matter "had 
something to do" with the result. I am glad, however, to 
recall your assurance to me that the action of the Commit- 
tee on Education was merely an administrative move in the 
direction of economy and of concentration of effort, and 
was in no way a personal matter relating to me or my work. 
You had tried to get rid of the anthropologists for similar 
motives (so you assured me), and comparative literature 
seemed to you, I presume, as useless as anthropology. 

Sincerely yours, 
(Signed) J. E. Spingarn. 

VII. FROM PRESIDENT BUTLER. 
Columbia University in the City of New York, 
President's Room. 

February 10, 1911. 
Professor J. E. Spingarn, 

9 West 73d Street, New York. 
Dear Professor Spingarn: 

To your letter of February 8, no reply appears to be 
appropriate other than an acknowledgment of its receipt 



OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE 25 

and a statement that it will be laid before the Committee 
on Education when they next meet. 

There are special reasons why that Committee will be 
very much interested in your statement that I assured you 
that I "had tried to get rid of the anthropologists." 

Yours truly, 
(Signed) Nicholas Murray Butler. 



VIII. FROM PRESIDENT BUTLER. 
Columbia University in the City of New York, 
President's Room. 

Professor J. E. Spingarn, March 7, 1911. 

9 West 73d Street, 
New York. 
Dear Sir: 

It becomes my duty to advise you that at a meeting of 
the Trustees of Columbia College in the City of New York 
held yesterday, at which time your letter addressed to me 
under date of February 8, 1911, was laid before the Board, 
the following resolutions presented by the Committee on 
Education were adopted: 

Resolved, That the Professorship of Comparative 
Literature held by Joel Elias Spingarn, be and the same 
hereby is, abolished and discontinued from and after 
June 30, 1911. 

Resolved, That Professor Spingarn be relieved from 
further academic service from and after March 6, 
1911. 

Professor A. H. Thorndike has been advised of this 
action, and will make arrangements for the carrying on 
during the remainder of the half-year of the courses of 
instruction which have heretofore been entrusted to you. 

Respectfully, 

(Signed) Nicholas Murray Butler, 

President. 



26 OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE 

IX. FROM PROFESSOR SPINGARN. 

March 11, 1911. 
Dr. Nicholas Murray Buti^r, 

President of Columbia University. 
Dear Sir: 

I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of March 
7. I shall make no comment on your failure to observe 
the promise contained in your letter of February 3 that 
you would inform me of the recommendations of the Com- 
mittee on Education "when the Committee's consideration 
of the matter is completed." I shall merely record my 
formal protest against the action taken by the Trustees on 
March 6 as morally and legally unwarranted and unjustifi- 
able, and state my belief that they would not have taken 
an action so obversive of academic freedom if all the facts 
in the case had been fully presented to them. 

Very truly yours, 

(Signed) J. E. Spingarn. 



CHRONOLOGY 



1895. J. E. Spingarn graduated from Columbia College. 
1895-1896. Graduate study at Harvard. 
1896-1899. Graduate study at Columbia. 

1899. Receives the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The De- 
partment of Comparative Literature organized by Professor George 
E. Woodberry, with Dr. Spingarn as his chief assistant. 

1900. Promoted to Tutor in Comparative Literature. 

1904. Professor Woodberry resigns, and Dr. Spingarn is pro- 
moted to be Adjunct Professor of Comparative Literature. 

1909. Promoted to be Professor of Comparative Literature. — 
Designated by President Butler as the representative of Columbia 
at the Poe Centenary Celebration at New York University. 

1910. Elected Chairman of the Division of Modern Languages 
and Literatures for the academic year 1910-11. The Trustees, de- 
spite the protests of Professor Spingarn, decide to amalgamate 
the Department of Comparative Literature and the Department of 
English into one department, of which Dr. A. H. Thorndike, Pro- 
fessor of English, was designated as Chairman. 

September 28, 1910. The University reopens. After eleven 
years of service in his own Department (the Department of Com- 
parative Literature) Professor Spingarn now for the first time 
becomes a member of the new Department of English and Com- 
parative Literature under the authority of the professors of Eng- 
lish. He protests against the right of the professors of English to 
exercise authority over his own work in comparative literature. 

November 11, 1910. Professors William P. Trent and Brander 
Matthews call at Professor Spingarn's office in order to learn 
his position. They assure him, in the most flattering terms, of 
their high regard for his work. In reply, he assures them of his 
willingness to co-operate with his English colleagues in every 
way, but reserves the right to ignore their authority if exerted 
in regard to his own teaching in comparative literature. 

November 18, 1910. Professor A. H. Thorndike, Chairman 
of the Department, writes a letter to President Butler, charging 
Professor Spingarn with refusing to admit the authority of the 
Department. 

November 21, 1910. President Butler writes to Professor 
Spingarn in regard to these charges, citing a portion of Professor 
Thorndike's letter of November 18, and asking for an expression 
of Professor Spingarn's views in regard to the whole matter (see 
page 12). President Butler writes that the portion cited contains 
the "substance" of Professor Thorndike's letter; Professor Spin- 
garn has no other knowledge of the contents of the letter. 

November 22, 1910. Professor Spingarn calls on the President, 
who urges him to see Professor Thorndike and settle this "tempest 

27 



28 CHRONOLOGY 

in a teapot," and assures him that he will not take official notice 
of the matter until this interview has taken place. 

November 23, 1910. Professor Spingarn writes an acknowledg- 
ment of the President's letter, pending the interview with Pro- 
fessor Thorndike (see page 14). 

December 9, 1910. Professor Spingarn introduces the Peck 
resolution in the Faculty of Philosophy (see his letter of Janu- 
ary 30, 1911); on motion of Professor Russell, this resolution 
is laid on the table. 

December 21, 1910, to January 3, 1911. Christmas vacation. 
Professor Spingarn was in poor health during the previous weeks, 
and the interview with Professor Thorndike was delayed. 

January 4, 1911. Professor Spingarn discusses the matter with 
Professor Thorndike. 

January 6, 1911. Professor Spingarn calls on the President. 
Incidentally he shows the President a letter intended for Professor 
Russell who had moved to lay the Peck resolution on the table 
at the Faculty meeting of December 9; the purpose of the letter 
was to renew the Peck resolution (see page 22). The President 
deliberately states that he had never heard of the Peck resolution 
before. He says : "If you don't drop this matter, you will 
get into trouble." Professor Spingarn replies : "I am not in the 
habit of altering my conduct because of the prospect of trouble, Mr. 
President." 

January 9, 1911. Professor Spingarn again sees Professor 
Thorndike, and arrives at an amicable settlement of the question 
at issue between him and the Department. Professor Thorndike 
states that he is satisfied with the arrangement. 

January 11, 1911. Professor Spingarn asks Professor Thorndike 
whether he should communicate the result of the discussion to the 
President. Professor Thorndike says that he will do so himself. 

January 16, 1911. President Butler notifies Professor Spingarn 
that the Committee on Education (a committee of the Board of 
Trustees) has decided to discontinue his professorship at the 
end of the academic year, i. e., June 30, 1911 (see page 15). 
Dr. Butler writes that "it is inexpedient to maintain a second 
professorship of comparative literature" ; neither in this letter 
nor at any other time did the President express to Professor 
Spingarn any dissatisfaction with his work. (Note that Professor 
Spingarn's present contract with the University reads "for three 
years from July 1, 1909, or during the pleasure of the Trustees"; 
that the President later acknowledged that this constituted a 
moral if not a legal obligation on the part of the University, _ and 
that at least one professor has come to Columbia on the written 
statement of the President that this contract constituted an actual 
obligation for three years.) 

January 21-22, 1911. The members of the English Department 
learn of the action of the Committee on Education for the first time, 
with great surprise. From this time, however, Professor Thorndike 
acts in such a manner that it becomes a duty to warn his colleagues 
and others to be wary in all their dealings with him. 

January 26, 1911. Professor Spingarn sees the President, who 
assures him that the action of the Committee was an administra- 
tive move not reflecting on him or his work; that he (the Presi- 
dent) would urge the Committee to rescind its action, and that 
Professor Spingarn's chair would not be abolished at the end of 



CHRONOLOGY 29 

the academic year. He advises Professor Spingarn to write a 
formal answer to the letter of January 16, and suggests the sub- 
stance of such a reply, which Professor Spingarn disregards in 
his letter of January 30. At three o'clock on the same day, Pro- 
fessor Spingarn sees Professor Thorndike, who states that he 
(Professor Thorndike) and one or two English colleagues had 
been called to the President's office and had been informed that 
Professor Spingarn's professorship would not be discontinued. 
(Professor Spingarn has not held any conversation with the Pres- 
ident or any member of the English Department since this date.) 

January 30, 1911. Professor Spingarn writes his reply to the 
President, reviewing the whole case (see page 16). 

February 3, 1911. The President replies (see page 20). 
Note the offensive tone of the letter ("inaccurate," "misleading," 
"impertinent," etc.). 

February 8. Professor Spingarn replies, denying the allegations 
of the President (see page 23). 

February 10, 1911. The President writes a brief acknowledg- 
ment (see page 24). 

March 7, 1911. The President announces that the Trustees on 
March 6 had "relieved" Professor Spingarn "from further 
academic service," to take effect immediately, as well as voted to 
discontinue his professorship at the end of the academic year 
(see page 25). 

March 11, 1911. Professor Spingarn sends a formal protest 
(see page 26). (Note the President's breach of faith in not 
notifying him of the action of the Committee on Education until 
their recommendation had been acted upon by the Trustees as a 
whole.) 

April 6, 1911. In this and subsequent issues of the Columbia 
Alumnia News, the managing editor, Dr. Robert Arrowsmith, 
knowingly publishes false and libellous articles in regard to Pro- 
fessor Spingarn, but in the issue of May 18 is obliged to publish 
the following editorial retraction: "Nothing was further from the 
intention of the News than to injure Professor Spingarn or to 
reflect upon him personally or as a scholar, and we should regret 
to appear to have done so." 



APPENDIX 

NOTE 

It is with great reluctance that Professor Spingarn, at 
the urgent request of the Columbia alumni whose advice 
is responsible for the publication of this pamphlet, has de- 
cided to include the following Appendix. Their arguments 
have for the main part taken this form : "There have ap- 
peared in the Columbia Alumni News and in one or two 
daily papers, no doubt at the instigation of the University 
authorities, anonymous attacks reflecting upon the character 
of your work. To us it seems essential that these attacks 
be squarely met, not as a matter of personal defence, but 
simply that the body of alumni may have all the evidence 
at their disposal. To many disinterested outsiders the value 
of your work as teacher and scholar will have a vital con- 
sequence in deciding the question at issue. A full state- 
ment of the case must include at least some testimony 
along these lines; without such testimony the record is not 
complete. You may of course shield yourself behind the 
claims of modesty or pride or personal dignity; but if you 
really intend to give whole-hearted service to a great issue, 
it is your duty to forget your own reluctance, to disregard 
the possibility of misrepresentation or misunderstanding 
on the part of others, and to serve the cause of Columbia 
and of academic freedom as well as you can." 



30 



APPENDIX A. 

LETTERS FROM STUDENTS AND ALUMNI. 

The following letters have been selected from those re- 
ceived by Professor Spingarn from his former students 
shortly after his separation from the University. To these 
a few other letters have been added, as indicative of the 
attitude of Columbia alumni in general. 

FROM GRADUATE STUDENTS. 

"I was informed this afternoon that your connection with 
the University was severed, and I cannot tell you how 
sorry I was to hear it. It was, in my mind, a great privi- 
lege for me to be able to attend one of your courses, and 
in a few months I had learnt much that I could not have 
learnt from books in years. * * * Your departure means 
a great loss to me, as well as to many students present and 
to come in Columbia University." 

"It was my intention to write you last week directly 
after I heard of the break in your connections with Colum- 
bia. But the feeling of my personal loss was so immediate 
that I hesitated lest I be too selfish in my expression of 
concern. But time has served only to deepen the impres- 
sion that the loss is particularly ours, and that this change 
only gives you free play for your activities. Although I 
cannot hope to be any less grieved for myself than I was 
a week ago, I trust you will understand and pardon the 
delay. If during my course at Columbia my critical atti- 
tude toward literature has been vastly changed, and, as I 
believe, made broader and more rational, that is the result 

31 



32 LETTERS FROM STUDENTS 

of the work I have done with you, and I should like you to 
know it. Neither can I let this occasion pass of expressing 
my appreciation of your ideas and my admiration for them. 
I believe them to be, as they have seemed to me, compre- 
hensive, true, above the whims of a race or an age. In 
contrast with so much that is bizarre and one-sided, they 
have particularly appealed to me." 

"I am very sorry to learn that you have left the Uni- 
versity. You have inspired me in my work, and I feel that 
I have greatly profited by your wide knowledge and thor- 
ough scholarship ; even more than the latter have your 
keen criticism and suggestive ideas aided me in my 
work." 

"May one of your former students express her great 
regret that Columbia is to lose the prestige she derived 
from your teaching and distinguished reputation? I must 
be one of many who feel the same." 

"In expressing hereby the full measure of my regret 
on your resignation from Columbia, I am afraid I shall 
violate the strict rules of formality, nevertheless I venture 
to hope that you will excuse me in case this should become 
a long and tedious letter. First I must confess that after 
hearing and reading so much about the cause I am still in 
the dark, nor are my fellow-students more enlightened on 
that score. One thing, however, is evident — their sincere 
regret, in which they are joined by the students of the other 
classes. As for me, my regret is still more profound. * * * 
This very freedom is what I most admired in your lectures 
while I profited by them, and this is why I regret partic- 
ularly your resignation." 

"* * * At all events, the Faculty of Columbia Uni- 
versity is certainly a greater loser than you, as a result of 
their action. Judging by my own personal experience, 
which has been confirmed by conversation with more than 



APPENDIX A 33 

one graduate student of Columbia, your lectures were of 
stimulating and suggestive character, which were conspicu- 
ous for their rarity. " 

"I have just read your splendid and courageous state- 
ment in the Times. I am thankful that there is one man 
in the university world with the courage of his convictions. 
You are paying the penalty of asserting your manhood ; but 
'what is banished but set free from things I daily loath.' 
It is partly our conscience, but mostly our pockets which 
make cowards of us all ; but we are cowards, none the less. 

I wish that Columbia's loss might be University's 

gain. We need sorely men of your type and scholars of 
your ability." 

"Nothing has pleased me so much, in a long time, as 
the account in the paper of your differences with Columbia 
University as represented by Dr. Butler. It is such a 
satisfaction to know that there really is a member of the 
faculty bold enough to speak his mind 'in meeting.' Natu- 
rally, former students of the Comparative Literature 
department have resented Dr. Butler's attitude toward that 
department." 

FROM UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS. 

"I want to express to you my keen personal regret at 
your leaving us. I confess that rarely was I so disap- 
pointed. * * * You will pardon my strong words in this 
matter when you understand that I am concerned person- 
ally in it, as is every man at Columbia so fortunate as to 
have had you as a teacher. I don't mind telling you that 
your going meant that the choicest flavor of my college 
work has vanished — really the only course that I took an 
interest in that was personal and spontaneous; now what 
is mainly left of my academic work here is to turn over a 
few dusty dry bones in courses, some of which have proved 
a sad disappointment. I don't think I shall ever forget the 
precious few months spent under your guidance." 



34 LETTERS FROM STUDENTS 

"I wish to express in partial measure my very sincere 
regret that you have severed your connection with Colum- 
bia University. Though in full realization of the loss to 
the University, which those who have been permitted to 
study under you feel to be very great, my regret is pri- 
marily a selfish one. My courses through college have been 
persistently 'practical' — in fact, I am now studying law, and 
took your course in Comparative Literature merely inci- 
dentally. But far from being a mere incident in my study, 
it has proved to be what I deem the most valued course of 
all my college work. The justification of this statement is 
based not so much on what I have already acquired, for I 
have as yet but a scanty knowledge or appreciation of Lit- 
erature, but rather on the promise for the future. Your 
keen and discriminating insight into the world movements 
in literature, your wealth of acquaintance with the great 
writers of all time, and your intensely interesting exposition 
of your impressions thus gleaned, have given rise to a 
desire, a determination, to gain for myself as wide and 
appreciative a knowledge of literature as my faculties will 
permit. Thus my regret is based on a feeling of personal 
loss. I do not extend sympathy because I know that no 
man needs sympathy when he is in the right. I do extend 
a word, wholly inadequate, of deep appreciation of your 
work in so far as I have been permitted to enjoy the benefits 
thereof. I am sure that my work under you, though of 
brief duration, will have a permanent place in my memory, 
and will leave a permanent impress on my life." 

"I was very much surprised this morning to hear that 
you had dropped your work with us for the rest of Compar- 
ative Literature. When I say that this was a keen disap- 
pointment I think I am speaking for the class; certainly 
for myself. In fact, we have even spoken of asking you to 
complete the lectures somewhere outside the University. 
Were you to act on that suggestion I am sure we would 
be pleased. * * * The work to which you introduced us 
was new for me; you interested me in it and I have you 



APPENDIX A 35 

to thank for this discovery of at least a new field for intel- 
lectual enjoyment." 

"I am looking forward with pleasure to hearing the rest 
of your lectures; I am fairly sure that most of the 
class will seize the opportunity you offer us, at once. 
Like a great many people, we failed to realize until you 
were gone, just what you and your course meant to us. 
That realization has now hit home, and hit hard." 

"I heartily regret that you are to be with us no longer 
at Columbia. My sympathy I am quite sure you do not 
want; I am equally certain that Columbia and its honored 
head need it more than you." 

"Might I ask you — on behalf of the rest of the class — 
whether you have yet decided the matter of continuing your 
lectures? We are all much interested in knowing, and the 
desire that you do so seems quite as keen as ever." 

"I trust that you will pardon the liberty which I take in 
writing you; but I feel that I should like to add my voice 
to those who hold you in high esteem. I would not presume 
to offer you sympathy, for it is not you, but the University 
which is in sore need of it. Your lectures have been a true 
source of delight, and a fund of knowledge ; and the depri- 
vation of them, if it must be so, shall be keenly felt. The 
standpoint which you have taken fills me with admiration, 
and I know that you will be truly honored by those who 
have any manhood, any self-assertiveness, any love of free- 
dom in their constitution. This action which you have taken, 
in living and speaking what you feel to be just and true, 
shall always be a living example to me of one who has 
refused to retract, or succumb to the abuse of authority. 
No words I could think of could truly characterize the 
contempt which I have for the President and Trustees of 
this University. But I did not wish to launch into any 
invective, I merely wished to tell you, in a feeble manner, 



36 LETTERS FROM STUDENTS 

how much I appreciate the value of your work, how it has 
broadened my intellectual horizon, given me a deeper insight 
and keener appreciation of literature in general, and the 
periods which you covered in particular. I look eagerly 
forward to the results of the request of our class to have 
you meet us privately, however much I feel that we are 
infringing on your valuable time." 

"I was extremely sorry to learn — and I believe that the 
same may be said of the whole class — that you will not 
conduct the remainder of the course. I hope that I may 
say without impertinence that I always found your lectures 
interesting and stimulating. I am sure that all of us would 
appreciate it very much if you would find it convenient to 
continue the course as an extra-curricular activity, for 
which, of course, the College Forum would be ready to 
grant us academic credit." 

"I hesitate to add any poor word of mine to the many 
letters of sympathetic regret which you must be receiving. 
Still, I thought you might be interested to know that the 
prevalent campus feeling at this latest performance of the 
authorities is something close to indignation. * * * It is 
a matter of grief to those of us who love Columbia and 
look up to Butler, to see him exhibit such startling limita- 
tions that he would crush out independence of thought 
and freedom of expression in a University, where of all 
places it should be nourished. I can only wish that your 
unjust removal will arouse the professors to assert a little 
more individuality, and extend to you no merely conven- 
tional sympathy in this unfortunate affair." 

"Jester tenders you its sincerest best wishes, and regrets 
that you are no longer connected with the University. I 
have been instructed by a vote of the Board to send you, 
with your permission, the Jester during the next college 
year, free of cost." 



APPENDIX A 37 

Undergraduate Testimonial. 

The students in Professor Spingarn's undergraduate 
course at the time of his retirement called at his house in 
a body, for the purpose of requesting him to continue his 
lectures for the remainder of the year outside of the Uni- 
versity, and presented to him the following signed testi- 
monial engrossed on parchment: 

"We, the members of Joel Elias Spingarn's last class in 
Comparative Literature at Columbia College, do tender to 
him, upon the cessation of his academic duties, this testi- 
monial of our gratitude to the teacher and of our regard 
and esteem for the man." 

From the Father of an Undergraduate. 

"I want to tell you how much I personally regret your 
retirement from the University. * * * I shall never forget 
your very sympathetic attitude toward my son, and just at 
the time, too, when he was most in need of encourage- 
ment. I shall remember that you were in reality the only 
one in the whole corps of instruction in the University who 
really took, an interest in him and his affairs. It is a fact 
that whatever the boy succeeded in doing at Columbia along 
the lines of his predilection in writing, was done in spite 
of the conditions that surrounded him and not as a conse- 
quence of any helpfulness or incentive they gave him. These 
are perhaps rather hard things to say, but they are my con- 
viction, and in expressing them I feel again actively my 
indebtedness to you." 

FROM ALUMNI. 

"I was passing through New York * * * when the paper 
told me of your situation at Columbia. The whole thing 
would be unbelievable had I not seen the same forces at 
work elsewhere, with similar results. So it all reinforces 
my double feeling — my personal loyalty to you in your gen- 



38 LETTERS FROM STUDENTS 

erous, self-sacrificing stand, and my humiliation that a great 
university — and my own, too — could stoop so unworthily 
from the ideals we expect of her. I have seen enough of 
the sacrifices one makes, in coming before the public as 
a critic of the administration, to know how much may be 
the personal loss, in misunderstanding and bitter feeling, 
from taking such a position as you have taken. Yet I 
think that those whose judgment you really care for will 
not be blinded by the obscuring personalities that always 
cloud such a controversy, and will recognize that there is 
a large issue lying behind, which our universities, following 
public opinion if they can't lead it, will one day have to 
face squarely and solve rightly." 

"I saw the Herald's account this morning, and I congratu- 
late you from the bottom of my heart. You are well out 
of Columbia — a cauldron seething with all the baser pas- 
sions, as far as I can detect — cowardice, self-seeking, dis- 
loyalty, and so on. You are fortunate, too, I feel, in having 
your exit publicly associated with an act of courage and 
conviction. Slowly, but surely, the new Columbia is being 
built out of the ruin of the old by just such acts on the 
part of a few, and your friends are proud of you for the 
calm and fearless way in which you have performed your 
duty." 

"You will believe that it was with regret and concern 
that I learned yesterday of the severing of your relationship 
with Columbia; but this regret and concern are far deeper 
on behalf of Columbia than on yours. You, at least, have 
exercised that rare privilege, of which so few of us avail 
ourselves in these days of compromise, by being courageous 
and sincere at all costs, and though you will miss Columbia, 
far more must the University miss a man like you. * * * I 
wonder whether the time has not come when some of our 
Alumni will have to take a definite stand against the high- 
handedness of President Butler. Quo usque tandem abutere 
patientia nostra?" 



APPENDIX A 39 

"The newspaper account of President Butler's treatment 
of you has just reached me. Doubtless you will be flooded 
by a multitude of comments from your friends — but one 
more from me can't do harm; and it may interest you to 
know how high-handed and unwarranted Mr. Butler's 
action seems to one who stands quite impartially on the 
outside of academic circles. * * * Mr. Butler's latest action 
is obviously neither well-pondered nor sane. That he 
should supplement it by disappearing is not very remark- 
able, and his secretary's statement that he will not be back 
until April Fool's Day also seems appropriate. I sincerely 
hope the consequences of Mr. Butler's action will not check, 
even temporarily, a career as brilliant as yours has been. 
Probably you yourself will not regret having to continue it 
in another atmosphere, since, whatever post you may now 
accept, it is likely to be more congenial than a professorship 
under Mr. Butler." 

"I note by the papers that you have been made the latest 
burnt offering. My feelings are rather mingled. Unlike 
you, I used to cut certain classes occasionally and attend 
others in which I was not registered. In this way I attended 
some of Butler's philosophy (save the mark!) and some 
of Harry Peck's. As an outsider I am of course ignorant 
of the politics involved in recent occurrences, but I am 
pretty well convinced of the gross unfitness of Butler for 
the presidency of Columbia." 



APPENDIX B.— BIBLIOGRAPHY. 

The following Bibliography includes the testimony of 
a few scholars and reviewers (especially foreign) in re- 
gard to Professor Spingarn's publications, exclusive of his 
contributions to periodicals: 

1. A History of Literary Criticism in the Renaissance. 
New York: Columbia University Press, 1899. Second 
edition, revised, 1908. Translated into Italian by Antonio 
Fusco, with a commendatory preface by Benedetto Croce, 
Bari, 1905. 

Letter from the Italian Poet and Scholar Carducci, 
August 30, 1899: 

"Caro Signore : La ringrazio del suo veramente pregiatis- 
simo dono. Da tempo io invocavo una storia della critica 
in Italia. II suo libro viene a compiere a superare ogni mia 
speranza; cosi profondamente sono scrutati i concetti, cosi 
finamente svolte le teoriche e studiato lo spirito traverso il 
Cinquecento, cosi bene analizzati gli elementi ; in opere che 
nessuno in Italia si da la pena di leggere, tanto sono difficili, 
confuse, e (diciamolo pure) inamabili. Credo che egual lode 
meriti la trattazione francese e inglese. Certo in Italia non 
abbiamo libro in proposito che si approssimi pur con lungo 
intervallo al libro suo. Di che Lo ringrazio anche per la 
letteratura italiana. La saluto cordialmente e me Le 
affermo 

obbligatissimo 

Giosue Carducci." 1 



1 (Translation.) "Dear Sir: I thank you for your truly precious 
gift. For some time I have called for a history of criticism in 
Italy. Your book now comes to surpass all my hopes — so profoundly 
have you examined the ideas, so finely unfolded the theories and 

40 



APPENDIX B 41 

"This book comes from an American university, and we 
wonder why our own scholars cannot give us work of the 
same kind. * * * Of his learning, his grasp of general prin- 
ciples, his tact, lucidity, and good sense, it is only just to 
speak in high terms of praise." — London Daily Chronicle, 
September 15, 1899. 

"Mr. Spingarn shows in every page of his work the 
almost enormous extent of his erudition. But he writes 
lucidly and simply ; his learning never appears tedious. His 
volume is the handbook of the subject of which it treats." — 
London Spectator, December 30, 1899. 

Letter from the late Professor S. H. Butcher, M. P., 
President of the British Academy, July 23, 1899 : 
"Dear Mr. Spingarn: Allow me to offer you my hearty 
thanks for your book, which is one of the most valuable 
and interesting pieces of literary history I have read for a 
long time. I myself have learnt much that was new to me, 
and I was hardly aware that so great and so rich a field 
had hitherto remained unworked. * * * I hope that we may 
some day make one another's personal acquaintance, per- 
haps in London. If you are ever likely to visit England 
or Scotland, do not fail to let me know beforehand. I am 
Yours truly and gratefully, 

S. H. Butcher." 

Letter from Professor Marceeino Menendez y Pelayo, 

Director of the National Library of Spain, 

January 6, 1900: 

"Ho tenido mucho gusto en recibir y mucho provecho en 

leer la bella History of Literary Criticism in the Renais- 



studied the spirit of the 16th Century, so well analyzed the ele- 
ments — in works which are so difficult, so confused, and (let us 
admit also) so tedious, that no one in Italy has ever taken the 
trouble to read them. I believe that the French and English sec- 
tions of your book merit equal praise. Certainly in Italy we have 
no work on the subject which in any way approaches your book. 
Therefore I thank you in the name of Italian literature. I salute 
you cordially and subscribe myself. 

Gratefully yours, GiosuE Carducci." 



42 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

sance que Vd. me hizo el honor de enviarme. Creo que ha 
acertado Vd. mejor que ninguno de los que en analogas 
tareas nos habiamos ocupado, a trazar la genealogia de las 
ideas criticas en la epoca del Renacimiento, y a determinar 
con exactitud el influjo de la cultura italiana en los precep- 
tistas de toda Europa. Cuando reimprima mi Historia de 
las ideas esteticas, tendre ocasion de mencionar el libro 
de Vd. y aprovecharme de su ensenanza." 

"Voici — et c'est le fait recent le plus considerable — que 
les £tats-Unis, avec l'admirable outillage de leurs Univer- 
sites neuves, entrent en ligne : ils nous ont envoye Tan 
dernier, un essai richement documente sur les origines de la 
doctrine classique (J. E. Spingarn, History of Literary 
Criticism in the Renaissance). II faudra, desormais, comp- 
ter avec l'erudition du Nouveau-Monde." — Gustave Lanson, 
in Revue de Synthese Historique, Paris, August, 1900. 

"Thorough in execution, good in method and style, and 
an excellent example of what a monograph in literary his- 
tory should be." — The Nation, New York, December 28, 
1899. 

"Certo il suo saggio con sobrio disegno, con netta preci- 
sione d'idee, con larga e ben digesta erudizione, segua 
sicuramente le linee principali della storia d'uno de' piu 
complessi e rilevanti fatti dello spirito moderno; e * * * 
come elaborazione di criteri direttivi per intendere lo svol- 
gimento della critica letteraria e la formazione del classic- 
ismo dovra essere ricercato e sara letto di tutti con soddisfa- 
zione." — Prof. Giovanni Gentile, in Giornale Storico della 
Letteratura Italiana, Turin, 1900, vol. xxxvi., p. 415 sq. 

"No venturer in this subject dare reckon without the 
learned author of the History of Criticism, or the American 
scholar who broke fresh ground in the remarkable volume 
on Literary Criticism in the Renaissance. To the thanks 
which I owe to them for my share of these public gifts, I 
add my hearty acknowledgment of not a few happy 
suggestions which our friendship has made possible." 



APPENDIX B 43 

— G. Gregory Smith, Elizabethan Critical Essays, Oxford, 
1904, preface. 

"II libro dello Spingarn, fin da quando vide la luce nel 
testo inglese, ebbe lodi meritate ed autorevoli. * * * H libro 
fa onore a lui ed alia critica americana." — Prof. Francesco 
Flamini, in Rassegna 'Bibliografica della Letteratura Italiana, 
anno xiv., 1906. 

"Professor Spingarn's History of Literary Criticism in 
the Renaissance, which has now been issued in a revised 
edition, augmented by a chapter embodying the results of 
the author's more recent researches, was originally published 
nine years ago. The German phrase 'epoch-making' is 
now often applied to books which do not deserve it, but it 
might be justly applied to this enquiry of Professor Spin- 
garn's." — Prof. Brander Matthews, in the Forum, New 
York, August, 1908. 

"Diese bahnbrechende Studie." — Prof. Alois Brandl, in 
Herrig's Archiv, 1908, vol. cxxi., p. 213. 

"Dr. Spingarn's learned and skillful account of the rise of 
Aristotelian canons of criticism." — Ferris Greenslet, in 
Atlantic Monthly, July, 1902. 

"All English-reading students, whether of criticism or of 
the Renaissance, owe to Mr. Joel Elias Spingarn the heart- 
iest thanks for his very useful History of Literary Criticism 
in the Renaissance, a book which most courageously and 
carefully explores and maps out a region of literature hith- 
erto far more talked of than known. There are, naturally 
enough, points on which I disagree with Mr. Spingarn. * * * 
But no differences can prevent my acknowledging the help 
he has given me here, and still more elsewhere." — George 
Saintsbury, The Earlier Renaissance, London, 1901, p. 
376, n. 

"I have cheerfully to acknowledge the forerunnership and 
help of Mr. Joel Elias Spingarn, whose History of Literary 
Criticism appeared in 1899. I shall have occasion to differ 



44 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

with Mr. Spingarn here and there; and his conception of 
a History of Criticism is not mine, just as, no doubt, mine 
is not his. But the obligations of the second treader of a 
previously untrodden path to the first are perhaps the great- 
est that fall to be acknowledged in any literary work; and 
I acknowledge them in Mr. Spingarn's case to the fullest 
extent possible." — George Saintsbury, History of Criticism, 
London, 1902, vol. ii., p. 3, n. 

"The most luminous account yet given of a field of lit- 
erary history which teems with obscure problems." — Prof. 
C. H. Herford, in Manchester Guardian, January 15, 1900. 

"Zum Schluss wollen wir Herrn Dr. Spingarn's Buch 
bestens empfehlen, denn es ist eine gediegene Arbeit, die 
gewissenhafte und scharfsichtige Forschung mit klarer und 
anschaulicher Darstellung verbindet, und dem Verfasser 
sowie der Columbia-Universitat zur Ehre gereicht." — Prof. 
E. P. Evans, in Die Nation, Berlin, April 21, 1900. 

"Beiden Werken hat die Kritik hiiben und driiben reiches 
Lob gespendet. Die nicht nur inhaltlich, wissenschaftlich 
tikhtigen, sondern auch ausserst anregenden und gut 
geschriebenen Biicher, die wir jedem englischkundigen 
Gebildeten empfehlen, ehren die Columbia University in 
New York und insbesondere deren litteraturvergleichende 
Sektion, aus denen sie hervorgegangen sind." — Prof. L. P. 
Betz, in Das litterarische Echo, Berlin, July, 1901. 

"Eine iibersichtliche, gedrangte und treffende Darstellung 
die iiberall das Wesentliche heraushebt und sich nie in 
Detail verliert, ermoglicht es dem Verfasser das grosse 
Gebiet in einem kleinen und ansprechenden Buch zu bewal- 
tigen." — Prof. Karl Vossler, in Literturblatt fiir germanische 
und romanische Philologie, September, 1900. 

"L'objet de ce livre est de la plus haute importance.* * * 
La synthase de M. Spingarn, on le voit, a le merite d'etre 
aussi neuve que solide." — Eugene Bouvy, in the Bulletin 
Italien, Bordeaux, 1901, t. i., no. 2. 



APPENDIX B 45 

"Die empfehlenden Worte, mit der wir die erste, englische 
Ausgabe begriisst haben, bleiben in vollstem Masse zu recht 
bestehen. Die grundliche Information, die klare Sachlich- 
keit und die Reichhaltigkeit des Inhalts sichern dem Buche 
einen dauerdnen Platz unterden grundlegendenNachschlage- 
werken, und die geschickte Verwebung der zahllosen Details 
in eine wohldurchdachte, einheitliche Darstellung machen es 
auch zur ersten Einfuhrung geeignet." — Prof. Ph. Aug. 
Becker, in the Deutsche Litteraturzeitung , Berlin, January 
20, 1906. 

"E il nostro torto apparisce piu grave se poi si pensi che 
non pochi fra gli americani piu cospicui per ingegno e per 
dottrina ci sono amici fervidi, sinceri, operosi, che studiano 
noi e le cose nostre e s'adoprano a farci conoscere seria- 
mente dai loro connazionali. A modo suo, F. Marion 
Crawford non ci voleva meno bene di Willard Fiske, di 
Charles Eliot Norton, di J. E. Spingarn." — G. Sacconi, in 
Corriere d'ltalia, Rome, November 29, 1909. 

2. American Scholarship; Les Belles-Lettres et L'Eru- 
dition en Amerique au point de vue academique: Mem- 
oire lu au Congres d'Histoire Comparee. Macon, 1901 (re- 
printed from the Proceedings of the Congress of Com- 
parative History, Paris, 1900). 

"Tot de geschiedenis der studie van de vergelijkende let- 
terkunde leverde de jonge Amerikaansche geleerde J. E. 
Spingarn een korte bijdrage. * * * 'Ons land/ zei de jeug- 
dige, sympathieke geleerde, 'is ontdekt geworden door Ger- 
manen en Latijnen; wij wenschen ons aandeel te hebben in 
beider beschaving.' * * * Een zeer gunstig bekend werk 
van den heer Spingarn is zijne History of Literary Criticism 
in the Renaissance" — Prof. A. G. van Hamel, in De Gids, 
Amsterdam, July, 1901. 

"If Dr. Spingarn is as good a prophet as he promises to 
be a 'comparative' critic, we shall have to look to America 



46 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

for guidance in these matters. * * * The institution of such 
curricula as are now offered by the School of Comparative 
Literature in the Columbia University of New York will 
do much to effect this general purpose, as well as to cure 
American scholarship of that philological dulness which is 
already commented upon in the West." — Blackwood's Mag- 
azine, January, 1901. 

3. Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century: Ed- 
ited by J. E. Spingarn. 3 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 
Vols, i, ii, 1908; vol. iii, 1909. 

"Mr. Spingarn's volumes are excellent examples of the 
best results of American scholarship applied to English 
literature. They suggest Teutonic thoroughness and width 
of reading, for references to French, Spanish, Dutch, and 
Italian criticism are frequent in the introduction; and they 
suggest that untiring industry in the accumulation of facts 
and ideas has been accompanied by hard original thinking." 
—Birmingham (England) Post, May 5, 1908. "One of the 
most solid and erudite prefaces one has ever encountered, 
even in a treatise on aesthetics." — Ibid., April 15, 1911. 

"Here our editor, with his perhaps unique familiarity 
with this literature, comes valiantly to the rescue. His 
Introduction is * * * a highly valuable piece of work, show- 
ing in a single page more real grasp of the subject than 
Saintsbury's History of Criticism displays in a chapter." — 
New York Nation, June 18, 1908. "In dealing with the first 
two volumes of Prof. Spingarn's Critical Essays of the Sev- 
enteenth Century, we called attention to the excellence of 
the editing and solid erudition of the Introduction. The 
third volume, now before us, gives no occasion to withdraw 
any word of that commendation." — Ibid., November 11, 
1909. 

"Professor Spingarn's Introduction is an illuminating 
piece of work, laying down the main lines of his subject 



APPENDIX B 47 

with admirable clarity and following them up with real 
force and insight and that rare kind of erudition which 
never grows pedantic." — London Spectator, May 2, 1908. 

"Der ausgezeichnete Kenner der Renaissancepoetik 
biekt hier, was an Kunst Kritik des 17. Jahrhunderts 
neben den Essays von Dryden, besonders zu beachten ist." — 
Prof. Alois Brandl, in Herrig's Archiv, 1909, vol. cxxi., p. 
477. "Viele Anmerkungen zeugen von der Gelehrsamkeit 
und eindringend vergleichenden Methode des Heraus- 
gebers." — Ibid., 1910, vol. cxxii., p. 487. 

"Lo Spingarn * * * mostra con acume le origini di certe 
idee nuove, il lento trasformarsi di una teoria in un' altra, 
l'azione della filosofia sulla critica ; * * * e in ciascun para- 
grafo non mancano le idee ingegnose, audaci, paradossali 
qualche volta." — A. Galletti, in La Cultura, July 15, 1909. 

"To Professor Saintsbury we are indebted for immense 
industry and a wealth of knowledge, agreeably displayed; 
to Professor Spingarn we are grateful for the philosophic 
synthesis that can illumine and interpret facts." — Prof. 
Frank W. Chandler, in the Educational Review, New York, 
November, 1909. 

"A word of praise must be added for Mr. Spingarn's 
learned and interesting and useful notes. He has selected 
his material with judgment and illustrated it with knowl- 
edge and care, and his book has a high value." — London 
Academy, May 2, 1908. 

"Mr. Spingarn's long and learned introduction discusses 
with brilliancy the tendencies and characteristics of the lit- 
erature of the time. His texts * * * are selected with judg- 
ment, and edited with a minimum of interference between 
us and the original." — London Outlook, April, 1908. 

"The catholic range and value of Mr. Spingarn's illumi- 
nating notes (always shaking themselves vitally free from 



48 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

mere philological and antiquarian detail), and of his vivid 
and comprehensive prefatory essay." — Liverpool Courier, 
August 7, 1908. 

"Compiled with that clean intimacy and power which 
made Mr. Spingarn's introduction to the first volume of 
the set one of the most notable pieces of criticism America 
has lately proffered us." — Ibid., November 18, 1909. 

"Professor Spingarn has done good service to the history 
of literary criticism. His notes are models of what such 
notes should be." — London Morning Post, June 11, 1908. 

Letter from Nicholas Murray Butler, President oe 
Columbia University, May 7, 1908: 

"Dear Professor Spingarn: 

I thank you most heartily for your kindness in sending me 
a copy of the new edition of your former book and the 
first two volumes of your Critical Essays of the Seventeenth 
Century. I spent last evening in going through these vol- 
umes with great satisfaction and delight. It is a matter 
of no small importance to Columbia and to American schol- 
arship to have so thorough a piece of work as this go out 
from the Oxford University Press by one of our own fam- 
ily. I congratulate you most sincerely upon what you have 
accomplished. 

Faithfully yours, 

Nicholas Murray Butler/' 

4. Sir William Temple's Essays on Ancient and Mod- 
ern Learning and on Poetry: Edited by J. E. Spingarn. 
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909. 

"As regards the editing of these two essays, it is hardly 
necessary to say more than that they are reprinted from the 
third volume of a book known and valued by most students 
of English literature, Professor Spingarn's Critical Essays 
of the Seventeenth Century." — The Isis, Oxford, May 7, 
1910. 



APPENDIX B 49 

"Professor Spingarn has done good service by extracting 
Temple's essays from his admirable series of Critical Es- 
says of the Seventeenth Century, and reprinting them in 
one small volume." — Birmingham (England) Post, Novem- 
ber 26, 1909. 

"This scholarly edition is an addition of the greatest 
value to our educational literature." — London Bookman, 
March, 1910. 

5. The New Criticism: A Lecture delivered at 
Columbia University, March 10, 1910. New York: Co- 
lumbia University Press, 1911 (reprinted from the Colum- 
bia University Lectures on Literature). 

This lecture has aroused considerable controversy in 
England; A. B. Walkley in the London Times of March 
20, 1911 ; William Archer in the Morning Leader of August 
5 and 12, 1911; the Manchester Guardian of March 20; 
the Birmingham Post of April 15, and numerous other 
papers have devoted columns to answering its arguments. 

"Professor Spingarn drops a shell into the critical camp 
by his essay, The New Criticism. * * * It is the most 
sweepingly iconoclastic utterance of its kind that I have 
ever seen and will drive the conservatives to their guns. 
* * * The writer handles his theme with a stimulating 
brilliance." — Professor Richard Burton, in the Bellman, 
March 25, 1911. 

"Nous avons souvent eu l'occasion de parler du Pro- 
fesseur Spingarn, Tun des plus brillants historiens de la 
critique litteraire." — Ch. Bastide, in the Revue Critique 
d'Histoire et de Litterature, Paris, August 19, 1911. 

"A very striking lecture." — Oxford Magazine, England, 
June 8, 1911. 

"A little thinking after the close of this blood-stirring 
lecture leads one to suspect that what our critical apparatus 



50 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

needs is readaptation rather than destruction. But it is a 
good thing to have it all challenged. Some of it cannot 
survive; let such of it as can, justify itself. Such wood- 
chopping is a refreshing sign of vigorous intellectual life in 
an American university * * * and one may hope that 
it is only a coincidence that he is no longer a college pro- 
fessor." — Chicago Evening Post, September 8, 1911. 

"J. E. Spingarn, autore del ben noto libro, La Critica 
letteraria nel Rinascimento, ha pubblicato una sua con- 
ferenza dal titolo, The New Criticism. * * * Una 
mirabile chiarezza a un gran calore d'espozione." — La 
Cultura, edited by De Lollis, Rome, 1911, nos. 13-14. 

"He discusses the subject upon a basis of broad historical 
knowledge, and in a highly suggestive and stimulating 
fashion/' — The Dial, Chicago, April 1, 1911. 

"A stimulating and thoughtful lecture." — Edinburgh 
Scotsman, April 3, 1911. 

"Once in a while there appears a message that is of 
real value to all lovers of good books and noble litera- 
ture; a message that is sincere, plain spoken, and vital. 
Such a message is Professor Spingarn's booklet, The New 
Criticism." — Los Angeles Herald, March 26, 1911. 

"Carissimo Amico : Grazie di cuore del bellissimo libretto, 
nel quale avete voluto parlare cosi benevolmente di me, e, 
qual ch' e piu, farvi propugnatore d'idee che a me sem- 
brano vere." — Benedetto Croce, Naples, March 19, 1911. 

Letter from J. W. Mackail, Professor of Poetry in 
the University of Oxford, March 7, 1911. 

"I have to thank you very warmly for having sent me 
your lecture on the New Criticism; I have read it with 
great interest and admiration. * * * Indeed, I have 
seldom had the pleasure of reading so much important 
truth brought together into so compact a form as in this 
lecture." 



APPENDIX B 51 

6. The New Hesperides and Other Poems. New 
York: Sturgis & Walton Company, 1911. 1 

Letter from John Hay, U. S. Secretary of State, 
September 25, 1901. 

"Dear Mr. S ping am: 

I thank you very much for your poem, which I have 
read with great interest and enjoyment. I am old and 
tired, but I still take pleasure in the dreams of other men, 
when they treat of noble things — and are well told. Lines 
like 

'For Spring finds Summer trembling in the root, 
And the March mists are melting into flowers/ 
and 

'Only the seeker worthy of the quest 
Shall find the perfect land' 
remind me of the days when I, too, dwelt in Arcadia. 
Yours faithfully, 

John Hay." 

"The author of The New Hesperides * * * has al- 
ready proved himself a critic of a very high order in a 
lecture on The New Criticism, recently reviewed in these 
columns. * * * We very gladly recognize the many 
fine qualities which proclaim him to be a true poet." — 
London Academy, September 9, 1911. 

"American pride takes many forms of expression, and 
sometimes the vaunting of the glories of the Spread Eagle 
is distasteful to the sensibilities of European culture. But 
Mr. Spingarn's poems idealize the self-confidence of Uncle 
Sam with so lofty an imaginative ardor and with so admir- 
able a grace of poetic art, that it is impossible not to admire 
the spirit of the poems. The old Hesperides, as readers of 
Grecian learning do not need to be reminded, were the happy 



1 The title-poem of this volume was read before the Society of 
Phi Beta Kappa at Columbia University in June, 1901, and privately 
printed by the Society for distribution among its members. 



52 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

islands of antiquity, where human nature reached its best. 
The new Hesperides celebrated in the chief piece in this 
charming book seem at first as if they, the modern Happy 
Islands, where progress is to reach its ultimate pitch, are 
going to be somewhere in the West of the United States, 
perhaps in California. But it turns out that they are an 
ideal land to which all humanity is more or less closely 
to approximate, however ahead in that direction the United 
States may be. The remaining poems in the book, an elegant 
Prothalamion, a 'dream of rose gardens/ and some pieces 
about love and gardens and the spring, are, each in its own 
way, no less eloquent and impassioned." — Edinburgh Scots- 
man, May 25, 1911. 

"The prospective reader who opens this slender volume 
expecting to find in it only such mediocre verses as is most of 
our present-day poetry, has in store for him a delightful 
surprise. For these are true poems — of a minor singer 
to be sure, but one to whom has indeed been vouchsafed 
some portion of the divine afflatus. Finished workman- 
ship, melody, aptness of phrase, depth of passion and of 
thought — all are here. * * * But the best poems in 
the book are the simpler verses gathered under the general 
title 'Young Love.' In these, three characteristics are 
chiefly apparent : a passion that is genuine, deep, and pure ; 
a discerning love of nature, and a use of words that com- 
bines precision with music and pleasing imagery." — The 
Sewanee Review, October, 1911. 

"He has at all events a spirit, a touch, and especially an 
intonation, distinctly recalling the English poet [Matthew 
Arnold]. We observe with pleasure, too, his possession 
of that virtue of which Arnold made so much, both in pre- 
cept and in practice — the virtue of clarity. His emotion, 
again, is of a restrained and purified kind, and in the poem 
which gives this thin volume its title he expresses patriotic 
ardor in just that note of exaltation which moves us the 
more through its freedom alike from sentimentality and 
coldness. * * * It is especially for a certain delicate 



APPENDIX B 53 

earnestness that his work is to be very cordially com- 
mended." — New York Tribune, June 17, 1911. 

"Nobody can read the little volume of poems just issued 
from the pen of Joel Elias Spingarn without realizing 
that he is a true poet." — Rochester Post-Express, May 17, 
1911. 

"He has the sense of beauty conjoined with the gift of 
subtle and refined expression. * * * He rarely fails 
to strike a high note with pure intonation." — William Mor- 
ton Payne, in the Dial, Chicago, August 16, 1911. 

"His poems are not all dreams, however, of 'Italian Pop- 
pies' and 'Rose Gardens' and 'New Hesperides' lapped in 
tideless summer seas. 'The New Palace of Art' surges 
with a social passion that can see no beauty in a beauty 
reared on groans; no justice in those conditions we call 
modern civilization, which force a hundred to sweat and 
starve in order that one may play jack-stones with dia- 
monds. This poem may well be quoted in its entirety." 
—Denver News, May 29, 1911. 

"A charming little book that contains some real poetry, 
which, in its absence of strain and eccentricity, it is a plea- 
sure to read. These lyrics possess a quality of imagina- 
tion based upon personal dignity that yet is not afraid to 
let itself go when the impulse of song comes. There is 
no gainsaying the loveliness of such things as 'A Dedica- 
tion,' 'Spring Passion,' and 'Italian Poppies.' * * * It 
is the work of a genuine poet." — Richard Burton, in the 
Bellman, October 28, 1911. 

7. Jacobean and Caroline Criticism: A chapter con- 
tributed to the Cambridge History of English Literature, 
vol. vii. Cambridge (England) : Cambridge University 
Press, 1911. 

"The only American contribution to the present volume 
is by Prof. J. E. Spingarn, from whose authoritative pen 
we have the chapter on Jacobean and Caroline criticism." 
— New York Evening Post, October 21, 1911. 



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